MUTINY! The polygraph machines will be coming to the White House soon because the deep state, it’s been revealed, lurks in the shallow end of the president’s own pool where there’s no lifeguard. It’s plain that Donald Trump has lost control of his government. The latest evidence of this failure comes from an anonymous but, purportedly, highly placed official who wrote a New York Times op-ed that depicts the West Wing as a crazy town. Could’ve asked our allies, but that’s another story.

The author took pains to reassure the nation that there’s a hidden insider cabal working to undermine Trump. That’s somewhat uncomfortable because no one knows who’s part of the coup, and whether their motivation is patriotism, or a desire to burnish reputations deeply tarnished by association with Trump. Maybe it’s both.

The op-ed said little that’s new about the president. Numerous books and articles have detailed the same allegations, but they’ve seldom come from active Trump sidekicks who’re cooled by the same plumes that wave heat away from pharaoh’s brow. What’s new is the secret plot to thwart a president that many feel was unlawfully elected with assistance of a foreign power. The situation is nuanced, and it feels dangerous, precisely because Trump is so erratic.

Trump admits that he thrives on chaos, dueling personalities, and that he brooks no opposition. While not disqualifying traits in a president, this embrace of institutional discord makes a majority of Americans very nervous, borne out by Trump’s recent poll numbers. Snatching children from their parents at the border, embrace of dictators, allegations of financial scandal, and unrelenting attacks on everything from the news media to the NFL will do that. Trump invites pushback.

The president has scant regard for norms customarily associated with the highest office in the land and, given this proclivity, must’ve known everything about him would be fair game. There’s good reason that there’s no such thing as libel of a public figure. The law protects debate and criticism, perhaps the reason why Trump wants to change libel rules. Trump’s outrage at the Times for being outed as a dyspeptic leader hints at harsher remedies than the usual treatment of his enemies as fodder for a hypomanic Twitter feed.

The crisis of leadership is severe enough that the vice-president, cabinet members, and appointees felt obligated to pledge allegiance to Trump, via denials they wrote the op-ed. The president has made so many enemies, however, that it’s going to be hard to finger the culprit. Take the intelligence community and the justice department. Each is a formidable foe that, no doubt, has been aggravated by Trump’s disdain for their top leadership. History teaches that when the emperor wars against the Praetorian Guard it doesn’t turn out well for him.

Republicans, including Trump’s most dedicated base, must prepare for the end of this unsuccessful experiment in outsider governance. It’s vital to seek a new leadership model more in line with traditional norms. Failure to do so could doom the party for decades. Americans are skeptical of cults, yet that’s what the Republican party has become. The country deserves better, and a lot less drama.

Today, the White House, on full-court mode, has attacked the Democrats for what President Trump's administraton called, "an embarrassment". Here are the article passages it has promoted to the media and others and placed on its website:

“Any doubt that Democrats are desperate to stall Judge Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court ended Tuesday, when they made a mockery of the confirmation hearings,” writes the Investor’s Business Daily editorial board. “This was nothing more than — bad — political theater.”The editors note that “while Democrats want to pretend that there is a shortage of documents available to determine how Kavanaugh will perform on the Court, he's served with distinction for 12 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court adopted 13 of his positions and overturned only one.”https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/kavanaugh/&source=gmail&ust=1536267281792000&usg=AFQjCNFsbspxBdnRI1fWe25QmZfU5SdQmA">Click here to read more. “In the history of Supreme Court nominations, there is no precedent for demanding all documents from a nominee’s career, The Washington ExamineWashington Examiner editorial board writes. “Democrats’ real intention, although they lack the means to carry it out, is to delay confirmation until after the coming midterm elections, in hope that they can win the Senate and kill the nomination. It isn't going to happen.” “President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday to defend his record and explain his view of the law and the Constitution,” Paul Crookston writes in "The Washington Free Beacon"The Washington Free Beacon. “Kavanaugh said his judicial philosophy comes down to following the law without exception, contradicting his critics' claim that he favors corporations and conservative political interests.” In an exclusive interview with"The Daily Caller, President Trump points out that he alone is fighting to reform defense pact spending that costs American taxpayers. “We’re protecting immensely wealthy countries and they’re not paying us for the protections,” President Trump says. “Why aren’t we being reimbursed for this massive cost?” “American manufacturers are on a roll: Business conditions surged in August to a 14-year high, according to a survey of industry executives,” Jeffry Bartash writes in "MarketWatch. "MarketWatch. “The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index jumped to a 14-year high of 61.3% last month from 58.1% in July.”

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, there have been over 60 million abortions throughout the country. According to former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton, these abortions have been great for the U.S. economy.

At the August 11 “Rise Up for Roe” event dedicated to stopping the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, Clinton said, “It is not a disconnected fact … that American women entering the labor force from 1970 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy.” Clinton connected this economic impact to the legalization of abortion.

In response to criticism that her remarks were “heartless,” Clinton tweeted, “Reproductive rights have always been economic rights,” and that denying women “a wanted abortion results in years of less employment & more family poverty.”

Of course, this argument does not account for the economic benefit that aborted children could have provided for their country. Among the 60 million abortions, there may have been an inventor who could have radically improved the lives of the poor. Who knows how many scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers and church leaders may have been among the aborted babies?

The value of life is incalculable as it is priceless and cannot be viewed purely in economic terms.

This argument shows that abortion advocates are getting desperate. They realize that the Roe v. Wade decision may be overturned by an upcoming Supreme Court decision or, at the very least, more restrictions may be imposed. Currently, 43 states place some restrictions on abortion, such as post-viability or at a certain number of weeks, such as 20, in the pregnancy.

In the upcoming Kavanaugh confirmation battle, the left will seize on the issue of abortion and try to determine the Judge’s view on the issue. Hillary Clinton stated that if approved Kavanaugh threatened “women’s rights, including those to make our own health decisions.” Radical leftist New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called Kavanaugh “an extreme conservative” who “cannot be allowed to join the Supreme Court.”

Liberals need to understand the basic concept of elections. As Barack Obama said, “elections have consequences.” Donald Trump won the presidency and has the right to nominate a replacement for a retiring Supreme Court justice. The U.S. Senate either confirms or rejects that nominee and currently the Republicans control the majority.

There will be a loud cry of Democrat voices expressing dire consequences if Kavanaugh is confirmed with a special emphasis on abortion. However, to promote abortion as an economic benefit shows a zealotry that is not shared by most Americans, who would like to see fewer abortions in the country.

According to a June 2018 Gallup poll, 48% of Americans identify as pro-life, while 47% identify as pro-choice. The trend is moving in pro-life direction for 20 years ago, pro-choice outnumbered pro-life respondents by a margin of 51-40%.

By a 48-43% margin, the Gallup poll revealed that Americans believe abortion is morally wrong. This large group of Americans understand that abortion is the taking of a human life and that can never be justified for economic reasons, no matter how Chelsea Clinton and his left-wing colleagues want to spin it.

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs locally at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and at 10:00 p.m. Sundays on PBS affiliate WLAE-TV, Channel 32, and from 7-11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990-AM & www.Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on www.JeffCrouere.com. For more information, email him at jeff@jeffcrouere.com

Endangered species, who needs them? They’re lots of other animals. Threatened species are not endangered, yet, so what’s the fuss there? Both impede progress. Climate change, on the off chance it’s real, won’t wipe out entire populations on earth while we’re still alive, so don’t fret when carbon caps get lifted. The banks made honest mistakes in the past, which they’re unlikely to repeat, so everybody’s money is safe again, and deregulation is good there, too. The sick, about time, can stand on their own two feet instead of lounging about in government paid wheelchairs, obviating the need for universal health care. And, hats off to the generous Iowa hog and soybean farmers who are supporting the economy by going bankrupt. Best news of all, however, the Russians mean us no harm.

We’ve taken up residence in a theater of the absurd and, while entertaining, at some point president Donald Trump’s followers will have to answer the question, is the ticket worth the price?

Donald Trump has ushered in a woulda, coulda, shoulda era where yes means no, and vice-versa. The strangest thing is that the people enabling him, seemingly, could care less, nor will they, one suspects, till their tap water runs dark, grandma or grandpa takes a fall, or the spot inside a neighbor’s kid goes malignant and there’s no insurance; pensions get cut; employers leave for elsewhere to stave off the bite of tariffs; and, nobody, they’ll say, could have foreseen anything like this.

Consider, too, what’s hidden from view, the things no one is talking about, like the secret agreements Trump struck with Putin in Helsinki. It’d be presumptuous to speculate that the deal was akin to a division of the world between Russia and America, the way Spain and Portugal divvied the place up in 1494. That would be too provocative to think, but something was decided when Trump and Putin confabbed, privately, and no one, so far, knows what that might be, except for the Russians who’ve announced a desire for Trump to get on with it, whatever that may be.

The president might want to invite Putin to the military parade that’s scheduled for Washington, D.C. on Veterans’ Day, November 11. The Russians fought alongside the Allies in WWII, after they divorced the Axis, their first bride. Eastern Europe was their prize. Russian leaders no longer bang their shoes on U.N. desks the way Nikita Khrushchev once did. Putin is far smoother and can be very charming. He gave former secretary of state Rex Tillerson a friendship medal for good oil deals, is a sportsman who just hosted an exciting World Cup, and can be a hospitable person, so while we’re on good terms, thanks to Trump’s ministrations, welcome Comrade!

Louisiana supported Donald Trump like no other state in the country. This is Trump Country. So is Iowa, Kansas, parts of Michigan, Pennsylvania and others. However, according to many experts, including Tulane's economist Peter Ricchuitti, Louisiana is being hit the hardest now than most states and has a significant amount to lose, should the tariffs keep coming.

Ricchutti discussed this issue during the fourth segment of our Live Stream interview recently.

Below is the transcript of part four and the entire video of the interview:

SABLUDOWSKY: Okay I'm gonna see if I can at this point get a tweet, okay there it is so I'm gonna put it up unfortunately you can't see it, but I will we'll go ahead and You are Mr. Technology Steve

Yeah I tell you like I said Al Gore has nothing on me, I taught him everything he knows. So okay so this is from The Hill-- US pig farmers warn there'll be the casualty in the next round of retaliatory tariffs prompted by the president--so they're not very piggish on the tariffs, it looks like

RICCHUITI: Yeah and this is another example of where the state's they're seeming to take the schedule take the big hits, we're really trump supporting states, so it is is kind of a is a little bit odd, but yeah you look back Steve every time there's a oh is a problem with somebody expelling diplomats anything, the first thing to be you as the pawn is food--it's always been the case, of, whether you're a chicken processing company and and we've had a spat with Russia they're not gonna buy our chicken, and then the soybeans and all that and and that's what--two things they're, you could say well that's the middle of the country that's not us. But all that has just come down the river, so we we're as we're affected really more than, more than the pig farmer themselves because it's it's what's coming through.

I was running by the fly yesterday and it's know obviously the cutbacks haven't occurred yet, but it's it's uh it's a marvel really to see all those ships going on back and forth, and we're the we're the focus point of it all and yeah and of course we're competing with other ports, and we keep keep trying hard. And I think the thing about the port is that because there's that big wall and nobody ever sees the port and if they really saw like you get a little break like a fly and you can see the ships come it but if people saw it day to day, I think they would understand better about how trade is so important Louisiana.

SABLUDOWSKY: So ok other than the ports, who else is gonna be hurt-- assuming that the trade wars are not solved as easy as the president says that they will be?

RICCHUITI: It's it's people that it's it's very funny-- like for instance i'll give you an idea of a stock that has taken a real welp-- Thorn Industries they're a company that make those Airstream trailers, those very cool nostalgic--well they um, they make those things out of aluminum, and they've--stock is in the last, it's dropped about 20 percent, 30 percent because they see those costs coming up, and so a lot of times it's not what do you think. I think like when you--when I think of steel, I think of well first of all I think of the movie Flashdance for Jennifer Beals--so what I really think--but it's, um but that's it's really visual and you can see the sparks flying and all that, but the many many many many more people are in the fabrication side of steel, and they're getting clobbered in here. In fact their export markets are just gonna completely dry up. I mean if you had , if the Europeans put put tariffs on products coming out of--we're you using--here's the key example, that steel and aluminum, we don't make enough of it here to satisfy the manufacturers, so they're all gonna at some point, even if steel went built more plants than alumina we're still gonna be buying imported steel and aluminum. So it's not a matter of let's just keep it in America.

I really can't believe what's going on to be honest to Steve-- ten years ago I would be giving a speech, and I would say that it will put a wall around the United States, and will drive our own cars, and eat our own corn--and I just used to say that is jokingly, and and now it's happening and so I I really love to see where this goes. An excellent time to be, excellent time to be studying economics though. There's a there's a plus.

President Trump has put the French back in good graces with the U.S. while criticizing other European nations. He apparently turned a cold shoulder to both German and England over tariffs and NATO, but has developed a close and warm relationship with current French President Emmanuel Macron. And that’s good news for Louisiana.

It wasn’t too long ago when relations between the two countries were a bit frosty. I recollect back at the congressional cafeteria in the nation’s capitol when they changed the menu from French fries to freedom fries. That really showed them! And for the record, I don’t remember reading of any politician advocating the abolishment of French kissing!

I remember a 1995 episode of The Simpsons, where Willie the groundskeeper is directed to become a French teacher at the local elementary school. “The French?” he hollers, “They’re nothin’ but a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”

But that was then. Although we’ve had conflicts and disagreements with the French, if you take a history lesson in Franco-American relations, you will see that when it’s crunch time, we can generally count on them. France has come out strongly in support of America’s tenuous situation in the Middle East, and the U.S. seems eager to let bygones be bygones.

Without the support of the French, America could well have lost the Revolutionary War. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson contemplated joint democratic values while serving as US Ambassador to France living in Paris. Many regard Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” as the best book written on the unique and exceptional American new form of government, that was later adopted by the French.

Many of us were close to speaking French as our native language. Napoleon’s agreement with Thomas Jefferson and Robert Livingston allowed for the creation of 15 new states, doubling the size of the United States. To give thanks to the French dictator, my home state of Louisiana agreed to hide him at what is now called The Napoleon House in the center of the New Orleans French Quarter. Unfortunately, before he could get to the Crescent City, he was captured, sentenced to exile, and ultimately died on the Isle of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a little Yankee bad taste from Napoleon’s involvement in the Civil War. France was avowed to be neutral, but it was common knowledge that Napoleon III was pulling for the South. Oh well!

And don’t come down here in South Louisiana and make any derogatory comments about France. Thanks to die hard Frenchmen, who immigrated first to Canada, and then migrated down the Mississippi as Acadians, the French tradition, language, culture and joie de vie is alive and well, and growing throughout Cajun country. In Abbeville, a small community just south of Lafayette, many of the signs outside retail stores are written in French. Several radio stations play only Cajun music with a daily rendition of the Cajun national anthem Jolie Blond, often played by my old friend, fiddler Doug Kershaw.

If the Good Lord told me I have one more trip to make to any place in the world before I pass on, I would choose Paris, and a ramble through southern France for the food, the ambience, the architecture, the Shakespeare Bookstore, a walk along the Seine. And the pretty girls!! Ah, to be 22 again back in 1963, when I spent months in Paris experiencing the special ambiance that is rarely found elsewhere. If you want to relive that Franco jolie vie, take a friend or loved one to see Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”

Certainly the French have their own national interests at heart. But they have also made it clear that what America says matters. Over time, there are historical allies and there are strong allies. Right now, France and the U.S. can claim to have both in one another — a solid past, and a present relationship that would seem to be in the best interest of both countries.

We in Louisiana are certainly glad of it. So pass the French bread. And for breakfast tomorrow, let’s have French toast and French roast coffee with French chicory, Louisiana style. And please, don’t shy away from an occasional French kiss.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

Donald Trump, fresh from threatening to blow up NATO for a couple of bucks in Brussels, landed in London and jumped straightaway into British politics when he endorsed the resigned, rouge, foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for the position of P.M. Trump didn’t stop there, though, and told the Brits that if they don’t see things his way, hereafter, we won’t trade with them, anymore, as we have in the past. The blame for this, Trump said, should Britain fail to amend its course, will fall to the current P.M., Theresa May. It’ll be a harsh penalty for May’s neglecting to follow the undisclosed advice Trump says he gave her about BREXIT, the divorce of Britain from Europe that Russia, allegedly, nudged along.

Meanwhile, back at the campfire, the border kids still languish and the House put on a hearing that’ll be licensed for the next 100 years to illustrate for future generations what happens when congress goes off its meds. The ostensible reason for the wacky hearing was an examination of FBI investigative honcho Peter Strozk’s texts to his married girlfriend, Lisa Page, a lawyer at the bureau. Strozk claimed the opinions he sent Page, and she him, on government devices, during work hours, didn’t affect ongoing investigations. Since the two texted between 10,000 and 50,000 times, depending on the source, at very least, they displayed evidence of grave obsessive-compulsive disorders.

For comic relief, Trump’s putative playmate from the Beverly Hills Hotel, Stormy Daniels, got arrested in Ohio on suspicion of a touchy-feely strip-tease, but the charges got dropped faster than a frat boy can whip out a buck. Michael Avenatti, Daniel’s lawyer, claimed it was a frame job and it’s been reported she’ll peel, elsewhere, on Friday. Showing the porn star isn’t the only photogenic face in the news, the government released a new mug-shot of ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort who looked weary, but unbowed.

More substantive, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is being suspected of plotting his oft-rumored exit with the president, to allow successor nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, to take his chair before the first Monday in October. Kavanaugh’s facile debt retirements have raised eyebrows but, probably, won’t derail him because the judge is a believer in expansive presidential immunity, is highly credentialed, and appears kindly. Besides which, he’s Catholic.

Of particular interest, regarding Kennedy, is that Kennedy’s son, Justin, was a head of real estate lending at Deutsche Bank, a prodigious Trump lender that’s infamous on account of its fraudulent sales of mortgage-backed securities, and manipulation of interest rate benchmarks. The Justice Department fined Deutsch $7.2 billion in 2017.

Mother Jones reported, on December 12, 2016, that Trump owed Deutsch more than $300M, including $170M for renovations to the old post office the government leases to the Trump Organization as a hotel. The president, and Deutsch which is accused of laundering $20B for persons with Kremlin connections between 2010 to 2014, have tangled in court over his debts.

Under conflict of interest rules, if a substantive case involving Trump and Russia were to land at the U.S. Supreme Court while Kennedy was still a justice, Kennedy, likely, would have to recuse himself forcing, at best, a 4-4 tie in any matter that affecting Trump’s presidency.

Next on the agenda is a Trump tea at Buckingham Palace with the Queen before he confabs, in private, with Vladimir Putin. That’s something to look forward to.

How is Louisiana's economy doing now that the oil prices have improved, especially since Louisiana is so dependent upon that industry? There have been reports about a poor Louisiana economy, so is it fair to blame the current governor, John Bel Edwards? Is the United States losing the manufacturing battle against the world as President Donald Trump has been claiming?

These are some of the issues discussed Thursday when I interviewed Peter Ricchuiti, Professor at Tulane Business School during a streamed event to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Periscope and Linkedin. Below is the transcript of part two of the discussion and the video of the entire conversation. Also, here is part one. Part 3, Monday.

SABLUDOWSKY: So oil prices actually have improved--what is it right now the last that you looked?

RICCHUITI: The last between seventy and seventy five dollars and, but the thing is, people don't have much confidence that those prices are gonna stick--and if you're an oil company, I mean what they do offshore is just an engineering marvel there but they're between the time they bid on that water bottom from the federal government and the time they actually get oil to the refinery, is can be up to about four years, so if you're drilling now you've got to have a lot of faith in where oil price is gonna be down the road, a long way down the road and because you're spending a billion dollars it out there and so I think that's what's made people hesitant. And of course the shale, the shale fields seem unlimited when we went over there and you visit with Texans and Texans were always very optimistic , they --one of the great oxymorons is the Humble Texas. But yeah they they're telling us they've got zillions of years worth of shale oil out there. And and that's one of the things that's happening, every time the price moves up, more shale is is produced because it's become so much more lucrative and that in turn pushes the prices down. So you have this very odd -- what would work of course is if the shale producers got together and decided how much oil they were gonna produce and but but that's it's really illegal. That's what it is, yes. You can have a cartel of the United States. So uh but that's that's kind of where we where we stand but go to places like Houma and Lafayette driving through there a lot and that's still pretty sad, see all that equipment just laying laying around there

SABLUDOWSKY: So do you expect the Louisiana economy to improve, I mean I know that it's very speculative I understand that, but I mean the the governor is getting hit for a very poor economy, I think the last, I believe is the last that I saw,

RICCHUITI: And we finished at the bottom of every single poll except for percentage of people incarcerated we're very very high on that one. But it's and with their look is education workforce, so we've got a long way to catch up in those areas, so when you look at the Louisiana economy, it's always very volatile according to trade and oil prices and such but what we need is a stable economy that isn't tied to such volatile indices and I will have to see word where it all goes. I'm glad I'm here.

SABLUDOWSKY: Oh yeah in we're glad that you here too, I mean absolutely. And you're you've won awards over Tulane four top professors at the business school so they glad you're there too. But we have an election coming up and some people are not glad that the governor is a governor and they blame him for the bad economy

RICCHUITI: Yeah I think that's really hard to do, because he inherited just an enormous enormous deficit that that Jindal got us into and and he's got a legislators been very it kind of on that no tax, no time kind of piece--I don't even know if that's really statesmanship and I don't know if it's financially responsible. You've got a situation and you have to have to balance the budget. I think the increase in the sales tax is difficult because it is a very regressive tax, it tends to hurt the poor more than more than the rich. In fact that's when you look at the national tax cut that just came through, it was it that was odd too because if you wanted to stimulate the economy which is ostensibly what they what they won't want to do, you would give the tax cut to the middle class. Because the middle class will spend a hundred cents of that dollar and the wealthy will spend a little bit and and and save the rest of it. And because one of the things that people get wrong over the last thirty years or so I think they've been skewed this way, but the idea that rich people are the job creators and it's really not true they're the rich people certainly helped but it's the middle class consumer that's the job creator. I mean demand creates supply, supply doesn't create demand, so , it's said, but economics is not a strong suit in this country. They asked saw funny poll once, they asked people with the Federal Reserve was, some thought it was an Indian reservations, some thought it was a brand of whiskey-- it's it's a yeah,

SABLUDOWSKY: So let's see I'm looking at a comment, actually a question--can Peter elaborate a little on who the tariff is hurting and what the people are saying, who it's hurting. I haven't heard of reasonable-- unreasonable complaints we all know we have to suffer briefly until the playing field is more level. And he says does he agree that once more in-house manufacturing is available then it's beneficial for a long term. So there's three questions there. So let's start at the first one who is a tariff actually hurting at this point, and and do you expect hurt and we looked we were talking about Louisiana?

RICCHUITI: Yeah well look let's take an example-- as the best example is the steel and aluminum tariffs that have come in, it's helping you if you're producing steel, if you're making things with steel it's killing you. The same thing with aluminum. Aluminum, we have very few smelters in the United States, in fact 98% of if you look at the American aluminum Association 98 percent of the the members are people that use use aluminum. And so it's helping a small, it's hurting a bigger group than it then it's helping, and I just think that's really really curious so and one of the things people don't get as they seem--it's two things people yet they think that we're not manufacturing anything in the United States that's a big thing to say in barrooms and things like that. But we're manufacturing more than we ever have in the United States but we're doing it with far fewer people. We're much more efficient and that's that's not gonna reverse. There's just no way. Nobody's gonna sign up for that in fact if you look at the capital expenditures, US companies have been, they've received a lot of breaks they're earning tons of money but they're not spending a lot so in some ways they're using the money to buy back shares, do a lot of mergers and acquisitions so in some sense I think we're eating our feed corn, we're not really planning for the future. But uh this is this is the problem on the manufacturing,r if you look at the money that's being spent right now for capital expenditures, almost all of it is going towards things materials machines go to improve productivity, and there's two reasons for that: one, is that certainly makes sense but the other is, corporations are looking at the situation and they don't have any workers left and the only way to kind of combat that is to create machinery and everything else that'll be able to do with fewer workers. So I just don't see the the manufacturing base. I see more production but I don't see a lot more people being hired. And you see that offshore too - Steve. It 30 40 years ago there are a lot of people that did a lot of kind of brawn kind of jobs out there and now these are the most sophisticated technology people i've ever seen in my life. So it's difficult. We'll have to see where this shakes out.

Each day, it gets worse across the world, but especially in our country. The epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome is spreading quickly across the American leftist population. It is easily apparent in a media that is 95% anti-Trump and includes liberal reporters who masquerade as objective journalists. It also includes so-called analysts who constantly compare the President to Hitler and his policies to Nazism and who shout offensive questions at the White House Press Secretary at her daily briefings.

This epidemic has infected plenty of establishment Republicans and the entire leadership of the Democratic Party. These politicians refuse to work with the President and constantly look for ways to pursue impeachment charges.

Possibly the group most impacted by Trump Derangement Syndrome is Hollywood celebrities. Last week, elderly and over rated actor Robert DeNiro yelled “F...Trump” as he was supposedly participating in the Tony Awards. The offensive comment was greeted by a standing ovation by the liberals in attendance. This is the same actor who has threatened to “punch” President Trump “in the face.”

Unfortunately, the hatred toward President Trump has extended to his family. Early this morning, actor Peter Fonda tweeted “We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles.” This threat was taken seriously by Melania Trump, who reported the tweet to the Secret Service. Hopefully, the Secret Service will arrest this animal for making such an inhumane threat toward a 12 year old child.

Peter Fonda is not alone as his fellow celebrities regularly blast President Trump and his family. Recently lame comedian Samantha Bee called First Daughter Ivanka Trump a “feckless C…” While some of her advertisers abandoned her program, she was not fired. This is in contrast to Roseanne Barr who was summarily fired for an offensive tweet directed at former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett.

The double standard is amazing as politicians, celebrities and reporters are not punished for disrespecting or even threatening the President and his family. Such treatment of President Obama and his family would have never been allowed.

Sadly, this disturbing behavior is being modeled by average Americans. For example, as the President was visiting House Republicans yesterday, a congressional intern yelled out “F…you.” Unfortunately, her name has not been revealed and there was no announcement of an arrest by the U.S. Capitol Police.

These alarming incidents are far too numerous. In October, a deranged liberal threw Russian flags at the President as he walked to a meeting with Senate Republicans. In November, an employee of a government contractor, Juli Briskman, flipped off the presidential motorcade while she was biking in Northern Virginia. Briskman was rightly fired by her firm for violating their code of conduct policy.

When infected liberals like Briskman start facing consequences for their offensive and possibly illegal behavior, then maybe some of these threats will stop. Until then, the President and his family are truly in danger as the epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome intensifies and spreads across the country, with no signs of stopping any time soon.

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs locally at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and at 10:00 p.m. Sundays on PBS affiliate WLAE-TV, Channel 32, and from 7-11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990-AM & www.Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on www.JeffCrouere.com. For more information, email him at jeff@jeffcrouere.com

" The buzzwords in the Mueller investigation today, one year anniversary of the start of the investigation is witch hunt" and "can't indict a sitting president".

Whether it is a witch hunt of not will be better determined once the investigaton runs its course. Whether a President can be indicted while serving might be an issue that could ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court.

However, overlaying both of those questions is another very important issue being discussed on cable TV and in the news recently, namely--what could be the effect should President Donald Trump decide to pardon others being targeted by the federal government? Believe it or not, an ancillary issue is--what happens if he pardons himslf?

On Friday of last week, we received a press released regarding a report co-authored by the American for Constitution Society (ACS) and by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CORE). The focus of that report dealt with the pardon issue.

On Monday, Stephen Sabludowsky, Publisher of Bayoubuzz.com interviewed the President of ACS about the reports findings. Below is part one of the interview. Watch the video below to see the entire recorded interview. Also below is the PRESS RELEASE associated with that report.

What prompted y'all to come up with this particular report?

Well you know one of the the goals of this project that we have with CREW is to explain to the public what's going on and what are the legal issues in play behind the Moller investigation. You know it seemed to us that you know that special counsel and prosecutors generally can't go out and hold press conferences and and talk about their work they really need to just figure out whether a law has been broken and whether charges needs to be filed so we thought it would be a good idea because there's such important questions here we do need to know-- did a foreign power interfere in our elections, were laws broken and so we wanted to explain a little bit about what were some of the questions that Mr. Mueller is trying to answer. And so in this context it's you know, the president obviously has a very broad hardened power--how would it work to affect the investigation?

Could he actually cut it off, could he protect himself by using the pardon power? So what we've done is explained for small what the partner power is and then what it does and doesn't cover and how by using the pardon power itself it might actually expose the president to even further a legal liability if it was used in such a way as to obstruct justice. So that's what the report has done and you know I'm happy to elaborate on each of those pieces but again the main the main focus was to really try and explain to to the public you know what's going on and what is he looking at.

So here's some sort of one basic element, the president's pardon power is expensive as it is, cannot, he cannot pardon something that's a crime at the state level. The president's power is only a commensurate with federal and criminal liability and so the states could continue if they were legal violations under state law could continue to prosecute. There is something called double jeopardy in our law which means it can't be prosecuted twice for the same crime. But double jeopardy doesn't mean that the state even if the state has a similar type of criminal law doesn't mean that once if if if the president were to pardon somebody for a violation under federal law it doesn't prohibit even for the same type of claim, most states will believe that that claim can be prosecuted under state law even if it's very similar to the federal law.

So you know so there's two levels of this--one is you know you can't pardon for state crime and double jeopardy doesn't prohibit state prosecution even if the pardon was for a federal crime of a very similar nature.

ACS PRESS RELEASE

President Trump will not be able to “pardon his way out” of the Department of Justice investigations, according to a newly released report by the American Constitution Society and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Trump has signaled his willingness to issue presidential pardons to targets of these investigations into potential cooperation between Russia and the Trump Campaign.

Authors of, “Why President Trump Can’t Pardon His Way Out of the Special Counsel and Cohen Investigations,” point out several reasons a pardon strategy is fatally flawed. Culpable individuals in the special counsel and Cohen investigations may not be able to escape state criminal liability even if they receive a presidential pardon. Some states have no prohibition on successive federal and state prosecution for the same crime. Even where states have provided greater double jeopardy protections, the laws may not serve as a complete bar to state prosecution. Then there is the possibility of civil liability and civil asset forfeiture — neither of which would be ameliorated by a presidential pardon.

The pardon strategy is also flawed because it increases the political and criminal peril that President Trump faces. Granting a pardon in exchange for a witness’s refusal to cooperate with federal or state prosecutors, or with other corrupt intent, could constitute federal crimes.The key findings of the ACS/Crew report are:

Presidential pardons do not cover state prosecution. A pardon can wipe away or preempt a federal criminal conviction (or set of convictions), but state authorities, not the president, have the power to pardon state offenses. For this reason, the fact that the targets in the special counsel and Cohen investigations are facing allegations that could lead to state prosecutions means that they may still face criminal liability even if they receive a presidential pardon.

The federal protection against double jeopardy does not prohibit successive state and federal prosecutions for the same crime. The constitutional protection against double jeopardy applies only to each sovereign, and the individual states as well as the federal government are independent sovereigns.

State protections against double jeopardy are sometimes more expansive than the federal protection; however, they cannot be relied upon to pose a bar to successive prosecutions. Some state double jeopardy provisions do prohibit successive state and federal prosecutions where the federal prosecution has either gone to trial or resulted in a guilty plea; however, state crimes that are sufficiently distinct from the federal offenses tried or admitted may still be brought.

A presidential pardon would, moreover, not shield defendants from exposure to federal and state civil litigation, including civil asset forfeiture. While civil litigation is generally less worrisome than criminal prosecution, it brings no shortage of its own worries. Because a pardon would not impact civil litigation related to criminal offenses under investigation by the special counsel, property and other assets owned by defendants could be subject to civil asset forfeiture despite pardons for their criminal conduct. Individuals also could still face civil sanctions such as professional censure, and in some civil litigation settings courts have even found acceptance of a pardon to be evidence of guilt.

An obstructive pardon would expose President Trump to additional liabilities. Such a pardon would potentially constitute an impeachable abuse of power for which there is clear precedent in the articles of impeachment drafted by the House Judiciary Committee against President Nixon; it would expose the president to criminal liability for bribery, gratuities, and obstruction of justice for which he could be indicted after he leaves office (and possibly also before); and it could constitute an admission of guilt that President Trump’s campaign, transition team, and/or White House engaged in criminal misconduct.

“No matter what the president says on Twitter – there is no guarantee that a presidential pardon will completely protect defendants from state criminal activity,” said Caroline Fredrickson, President of the American Constitution Society.

“Pardons of people being investigated by the Special Counsel and other prosecutors may seem like an easy way out for the president, but he needs to know that solution just won’t work and in fact will leave him in even worse trouble,” said Norman Eisen, CREW’s Chair and former chief White House ethics lawyer.

“If President Trump issues pardons to impede the investigations into him, he will increase his own legal problems, potentially including providing strong new evidence of obstruction of justice,” said Noah Bookbinder, CREW’s Executive Director.

This paper was prepared for the Presidential Investigation Education Project, a joint initiative by ACS and CREW to promote informed public evaluation of the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and others into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters. This effort includes developing and disseminating legal analysis of key issues that emerge as the inquiries unfold and connecting members of the media and public with ACS and CREW experts and other legal scholars who are writing on these matters. The authors of this paper are available for interviews.

The American Constitution Society (ACS), founded in 2001 and one of the nation's leading progressive legal organizations, is a rapidly growing network of lawyers, law students, scholars, judges, policymakers and other concerned individuals dedicated to making the law a force to improve lives of all people. For more information about the organization or to locate one of the more than 200 lawyer and law student chapters in 48 states, please visit www.acslaw.org.